EXCLUSIVE: Journalists accuse BBC Arabic of failing to pay 'thousands of dollars' in fees
The bureau, a part of the UK licence fee-funded World Service, is accused of withholding $10,000 from one contributor, and of not paying a reporter in a war zone.
Last week, veteran US-based analyst and broadcaster Mehdi Eliefifi interrupted his latest interview with BBC Arabic to make an on-air protest: he claimed they haven’t paid him for two years.
I spoke to Eliefifi and several other journalists, correspondents, and analysts, all of whom claimed they are owed huge sums of money for work dating back years.
This includes Fatma Eddaama, who lives and works in the Gaza Strip and reported for the BBC during an Israeli bombing campaign in May 2021 - work for which she has still not been paid.
openDemocracy published the story this morning:
The BBC told openDemocracy it would not comment on individual claims. But in a statement, it apologised to all those waiting for delayed payments and said it was “working hard to solve this case as soon as possible”.
After the video of Eliefifi’s protest went viral in the Middle East and North Africa, several other journalists claimed similar experiences with BBC Arabic.
Ahmed Fathi, a US-based UN correspondent who says he has contributed analysis for BBC Arabic “maybe hundreds of times” since 2017, described eventually “giving up” trying to claim payments.
“We found they were always changing the people and the numbers, whether it's the landline or cell,” he told openDemocracy. “The booking agents are just enablers. You don't have any access to their management. You don't have any access to a central figure that you can talk through issues with.”
READ: BBC Arabic owes journalists ‘thousands of dollars’ after three years’ unpaid fees
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